


Just a Phone Call

by PeroxidePirate



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-02
Updated: 2009-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:27:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeroxidePirate/pseuds/PeroxidePirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why didn't Spike see Buffy again when he came back to life? Well, who says he didn't? Unpolished ficlet from Angel's POV, because I could not rest until I came up with an answer of some kind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Phone Call

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[angel](http://peroxidepirate.livejournal.com/tag/angel), [btvs](http://peroxidepirate.livejournal.com/tag/btvs), [buffy](http://peroxidepirate.livejournal.com/tag/buffy), [false memories](http://peroxidepirate.livejournal.com/tag/false+memories), [spike](http://peroxidepirate.livejournal.com/tag/spike)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Just a Phone Call**_  
**Title: **Just a Phone Call  
**Rating:** R  
**Fandom: **_Angel/ Buffy the Vampire Slayer_  
**Disclaimer:** These characters and their universe are not owned by me.  
**Characters:** Angel, Spike, Buffy, Eve  
**Summary:** Why didn't Spike see Buffy again when he came back to life? Well, who says he didn't? Unpolished ficlet from Angel's POV, because I could not rest until I came up with an answer of some kind.

 

 

I just meant to call her.

"It's good to hear your voice."

"Funny thing for the president of Evil, Inc. to be saying to the slayer."

I sighed. "You're _a_ slayer now, not _the_ slayer. And I'm not president of anything. I'm just the CEO of --"

"-- one branch of an evil corporation that you're trying to change from the inside out, I know, I read the cliff notes."

"But you don't trust me."

"Should I? You waited four months to call me, and now that I've got a _life_ again, aren't you just trying to make sure I'm not happy?"

"Buffy--"

"Wait, I forgot, you like to show up to do that sort of thing in person."

"Last time I 'showed up,' as you put it, I handed you an artifact that kept you from getting killed."

"It didn't save --" she stopped herself, like we didn't both know what she was going to say, and then started again. "It didn't save everyone."

"I thought I'd be the one wearing it! You go a year and a half without calling--"

"You're my _ex_, Angel."

"-- and then I thought maybe you could use some help, and it turns out that you're, what, _falling in love_ with Spike?"

"From what Willow said about you and _Cordelia--"_

"Cordy's dying." My throat clenched as I said it. "She's in a coma, and she probably won't wake up."

"And Spike's already dead." Her voice was very, very tired. "Let it go."

"No, he's not," I answered. "No deader than usual, anyway. No deader than I am."

There was a long silence on her end of the phone, and then I heard her draw in a deep breath, like maybe she was trying not to cry.

When she finally spoke again, her voice was businesslike and cold. "There are four squads of slayers right in Southern California. Add in the slayers stationed in Nevada and Northern Cal, and I could get almost ninety slayers there in less than 24 hours. Even Wolfram &amp; Hart wouldn't stand against them for long." No, she wasn't cold. She was very, very angry. "But I'm not going to do that, Angelus. I'm coming to L.A. so that I can personally be the one to stake you. Which I should have done long ago."

 

I left orders for security to let her in and sent Eve to meet her because -- well, somebody had to do it, and Eve's immortal, even in the face of full sunlight or a pissed off blond with a wooden stake. Although I'm not certain about decapitation.

Spike was with me in my outer office, nervously bouncing from foot to foot. Harmony was behind her desk, making a point of ignoring him, which he completely failed to notice. And, I admit it, I lurked.

My security intercom lit up. "Mr. Angel, the--" and that's as far as it got before the double-doors swung open and Buffy strode through them, holding some kind of weapon with a long blade made of gleaming metal fused to polished wood, like a stake and a sword all in one. She was trailed by Eve, who also looked pretty pissed, though hell if I can figure out why.

Buffy pretty much charged toward me, weapon raised, and then she must have seen Spike standing beside me, because she stopped dead.

"Hello, luv."

Buffy opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, looking from Spike to me and then back again.

"It's true," I said. "I couldn't believe it, either, but there he is..."

Buffy's halbard, or whatever it was, dropped to the floor with a clatter. I thought she was going to run into Spike's arms, but she stopped a couple feet back and just looked at him. She held up one hand, palm out, and Spike did the same. They brought their hands slowly together, and when his skin touched hers, she gave a little gasp and I could see tears start to leak from her eyes.

I shook my head. "First Cordy and Connor, now this," I muttered, looking away.

I caught Harmony's annoyed glance. She opened her mouth, but I started talking first. "Yep, Spike's back -- every inch of his chain-smoking, peroxide-headed, irritating, aggravating self."

Buffy blinked a couple of times, like she was only just now remembering that I was even _there._ When she spoke, it was to Spike. "Is there someplace we can... talk?"

He was grinning at her like an idiot -- pure happiness, not the mocking grin he usually wears -- right up until Harmony piped up with, "Spike doesn't work here or anything. But you could have sex with him in what's-his-name's office. That's what I did last week, when he --"

"WHAT!?"

Buffy grabbed Spike by the collar of his leather coat and propelled him backwards until his head cracked against the glass of the wall behind.

"He was thinking about you the entire time," Harmony said with a pout. "If that helps, at all."

"So that's why Angel's the one who called," Buffy said, finally looking at me. "You had to make sure I knew that _another_ guy stopped loving me--"

"I never said that!" Spike interrupted. "It's not like I love _her..."_

"Blondie Bear!" Harmony whined.

Spike and Buffy ignored her. "Then why didn't _you_ call?"

"I was going to. That is, I would have. But I thought you were moving on. Wanted you to have a--"

I was sort of behind Buffy by then, so Spike could see me over her head, and I drew a finger across my throat. I deserve to kill him, if anyone does, and I won't let Buffy beat me to it.

"If you say I deserve a 'normal life' with a 'normal guy,' Spike, I'm going to stake you right now." Buffy banged his head against the glass for emphasis every time she said 'normal.'

He rolled his eyes. "Not normal, then. Superior to yours truly, ok? I appreciate how you lied to me when I was dying--"

She slapped him. Like she was just a woman, and he was a man who'd done her wrong. "I never lied to you," she said. "I loved you."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "For the love of God, Spike, isn't there somewhere else you two can take this?"

Buffy looked right at me. "Loved. Past tense." She glanced at Harmony, and then at Spike, with a look of uncomprehending disgust. "Dying changes a person, obviously--"

"You'd know about that," Spike and I said at the same time.

Our eyes locked, and I know they held the same expression of horror. And then Spike shoved past Buffy, limbs flailing, and lit into me. I was expecting it... but I'd been expecting it too long, so rather than being on high-alert, I was starting to relax again, and he managed to knock me over anyway. I fell down, groaning, then dragged myself back up and kicked out at his midsection. Buffy got between us, somehow, and my foot connected with her ribs instead. She fell back against Spike, who took the opportunity to _cop a feel,_ the shameless bastard, before Harmony let out a shriek and started trying to drag him away. He rounded on her, punching her in the jaw, and she came back up in game face and went for Buffy. Spike moved to defend her, I tried to stop him, and Buffy tried to break my kneecaps.

After that I lose track of exactly what happened, because furniture was starting to break. The glass windows are heavily enchanted -- we learned that the hard way -- so they held, but the desk didn't. I was vaguely aware of a crowd gathering around, and Eve quietly smirking, but I didn't let that stop me. The fight went on and on -- I think Harm was on my side in the beginning, if that makes any sense, but later it was just a complete free for all. Once Spike caught my eye across the room, and I was washed away by the memory of the two of us squabbling with Dru and Darla.

At some point after that, Harmony was knocked unconscious. With a paperweight, I think. And then Buffy grabbed Spike, backed him against the nearest solid surface, and started kissing him. Which probably should have bothered me, especially since the nearest solid surface was _me--_ but then clothes started being ripped from bodies, and I got kind of distracted. Especially when it was my clothes being torn from my body.

We ended up on the floor, since there wasn't any furniture anymore, and by that time we weren't fighting at all. I found myself wondering why it was so easy for Spike and Buffy to make that transition, and then they distracted me again. Eventually it occurred to me that I probably wasn't going to get through this -- making love with Buffy _and_ Spike, which is clearly what was happening -- with my soul still attached. But it all felt so good I didn't even care. They'd end up fighting over who got to stake me, and then go at it again in my ashes... and my only regret is that I wouldn't be able to _watch._

Spike was starting to shudder already, and Buffy's eyes were kind of rolling back, and I was definitely. going to. lose it.

The only sounds were Buffy's ragged breathing and three sets of moans and gasps, until a voice said, with more disgust than I have ever heard expressed, "You're fucking a _slayer?"_

I knew that voice, identified its owner as the Archduke, and then remembered that we were on the floor of what had once been my outer office. Just at that moment, Spike's teeth dug into my flesh, Buffy gasped out my name, and the most all-consuming, mind-bending orgasm of my entire 240 years of existence ripped through my body. Everything went white.

 

"Buffy? Spike?" I opened my eyes, then closed them again. I was on the floor of my office. I was naked. I thought about torturing babies and felt an immediate stab of guilt, which means my soul was still there.

I opened my eyes again. The office was empty and clean.

I sat up.

There was Eve, leaning against a desk with a decidedly smug expression on her face. "Buffy's in Italy. Spike is... in the bar across the street, I think. Or wherever he goes when he's not bothering you."

I looked around, trying to assess the situation. "I thought..." I shook my head. One hell of a dream, I guess.

"... that you beat the shit out of each other and Harmony, trashed your office, and had wild three-way sex in front of literally dozens of your employees and clients?" Eve smirked. "Yeah, that happened."

"Clients." I covered my face with my hands. "The Archduke."

"Not that it's any of my business," Eve said, eyeing me, "but I'd guess that the Archduke is the one and only reason that soul of yours is still attached."

I sighed. "I'm fired."

Eve shook her head. "Oddly, no."

"But the Archduke--"

"-- Doesn't remember a bit of it. And neither does anybody else, except for you and me."

I started to feel sick. "Another memory spell?"

"I have a message from the Senior Partners." Eve dropped to her knees in front of my seated, naked form and leaned close to my face. When she spoke again, her voice sounded older -- and coldly angry, like Buffy's had been on the phone. "You destroyed our property and offended our loyal clients. This comes out of your operating budget. And this is the very last time we will alter reality to benefit you or yours." Then she gave me a mocking smile, and continued in her usual voice. "Gay vampire sex? Sure. Even in public, if that suits you. But keep the slayer out of it, hey? And _try_ not to break stuff."

I groaned. "But they... Spike and Buffy... they don't remember?"

"That part is my gift to you."

"Gift?"

She shrugged. "Well, I'll take it back if you want. But you kept muttering about Cordelia and Connor. I know in the heat of the moment they didn't mind, but once they have a minute to think about it..."

I groaned again. Could this _get_ any worse?

"I mean, for such a taciturn guy, you sure talk a lot during sex."

I forgot. It could always get worse. "What else..?"

Eve patted my cheek. "You don't want to know." She stood up. "And do you have any idea how hard it is to repress memories in a slayer? Especially when international travel is involved? They're very close to the surface, and if anything happens that, you know, _connects_ her to what went on, it's all going to come tumbling out. I had to lay a gaes on Spike to keep him from getting in touch with her, because if they ever fight or have sex again..."

"Oh, god."

Eve nodded. "Most of it's standard W &amp; H memory work, but the gaes is my own special thing. It only stays in effect as long as I'm your liaison to the Senior Partners."

I sighed. "You're _blackmailing_ me?"

"Gotta look out for Number One. But look at it this way, Angel: thanks to me, you get to remember having great sex twice this year." She headed for the door, stopping to flash me that winning smile. "You _might_ want to put some clothes on," she said. "But then, you might not. Spike's headed this way."

 

_(Edit to say I realized I *still* have Spike saying that he wasn't going to call Buffy, which is the out of character incident I was trying to explain in the first place. Well, I can believe that Spike was trying to get his feet under him before he called her, or that he'd dither about it for a couple of weeks. Just not that he'd go six months without letting her know he's around.)_


End file.
